Sunday message 10/10/21 spanish version attached below
Walter Coleman
Assembly in the Word:
“The Year of Persistent Faith”
First Week in the Time of Assembly
This congregation is really a family of families- and families in struggle. Nobody here has it easy. Our people face discrimination and often hatred against them. Some of us bear the scars of prison; some of us the scars of sickness without adequate health care; some of us have lost our jobs this year; some of us have lost loved ones to gun violence. We have our freedom charter but we are not just looking for freedom FROM things – we are looking for a community of free people that work together to feed our families, give strength and direction to each new generation and which celebrates the abundance of the Lord through faith and justice.
Let me say again: nobody here has it easy. Every day we learn that someone we know has been tagged with the deadly virus. We cry together with the survivors – try to support those in the hospital while we are not allowed to see them or touch them. What a cruel reality when we are kept from touching or comforting those we love most in the world!
As we look back on this year, it began with the defeat of President Donald Trump. We had survived four years during which the Latino community – and especially the undocumented – was specifically targeted with a campaign of hate and intimidation. Yes we had survived Trump, but we had little confidence in what the Biden democrats would do.
So where do we find our hope? I believe that we found hope this year in many ways and in the next seven weeks it is our task to gather those seeds of hope, those pathways to hope, that we discovered this year so that we can plant those seeds in the soil of faith next year. Our first gathering of those seeds, our first assembly, is the assembly in the Word in which we receive the gifts of persistent faith.
The Word become flesh is the Word of Hope. The Word became flesh so that we might become sons and daughters of God, faithful to the way of righteousness. The Word became flesh so that we would serve our people and fight inequality. The Word became flesh so that we would rekindle love in old relationships and confront hypocrisy in relationships that had grown oppressive. The Word became flesh so that we would persevere in sustaining our communities of faith and become disciples ourselves to bring others to walk next year’s journey with us living the Gospel, the journey that restores hope.
Today, this week, we assemble the seeds of hope given us by our ancestors, by the appearance of Guadalupe to Juan Diego, by the courage of those mothers who crossed the desert to plant a people in this land, by the new spirit planted in women in sisterhood across this country – and by the faith, the Word become flesh, given us by Jesus.
It had been four long years of hate – and then Trump unleashed the virus into our communities. There have been over 700,000 dead and seven million infected. Those most affected have been from our communities.
Yes, we have cried for loved ones lost. Yet we are here. We have survived!
We have seen a whole new generation provide testing and vaccinations for thousands, centered right here in our churches. We have taken on the cases of young brothers like Abel who have been killed by police. We have found jobs for people in our community. And we continue to fight deportations, utilizing every defense possible.
This year, we stood with Congressman Bobby Rush to announce the introduction of a bill in Congress that would provide legal status for the undocumented parents of 7 million young people, restoring the families they have a right to.
The Biden democrats determined instead to put forth legislation which would legalize certain categories of workers they argued were necessary to this nation’s economy. They joined this proposal with a broad group of programs on which Biden had campaigned. In order to pass these programs, the democrats, who held only a one vote majority in the Senate, chose to introduce the whole package as a budget reconciliation. When the senate parliamentarian ruled the immigration and legalization proposal ineligible for budget reconciliation, it seems that they dropped our families from consideration all together! Were the democrats serious about justice for the eleven million? It is hard for me to believe that long time elected officials, like Senator Durbin, just didn’t know the rules of the Senate!
Yet our campaign to keep our families together, to reunite families that have been cruelly separated, is about something much more important than an election. Our struggle together is to realize the Kingdom of God, to bring the presence of the Holy Spirit among us, and to establish the beloved community with unity and justice here and everywhere. We will take the support we won from so many places and in so many hearts and come back stronger next year!
Just as the Biden democrats failed our families in the neighborhoods, so they reverted to Trump’s tactics at the border. First, we saw the Central Americans turned back and then it was the Haitians – treated like cattle, forced to retreat by cowboys on horseback, and then deported back to Haiti where there are no jobs and violence on every street corner.
The Biden administration was ready with their answer to the crisis at the border. The president sent his new vice-president to the capitals of Central America with instructions to address “the root causes” of the mass migrations. Like their immigration proposal they showed a good intention – but it had no serious reality! It will take more, much more than a few policy changes to reverse the colonialism and exploitation, the armed interventions and puppet governments. which this nation has visited on the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean!
Still, we have survived and grown both in our numbers and our determination. Yes, we have survived! No, we have not had it easy - but we have survived these last years, and we have grown stronger. If you found yourself trapped in despair at different times, NO MATTER! You are here now! Remember Christ was tried and nailed to a cross. OUR FAITH comes from his resurrection. OUR FAITH comes from the love he showed for people like us.
Political solutions are mostly superficial - but the faith given the people of God endures, persists, and is renewed in the struggle we share with each other. Each time during the last years that we have overcome discouragement, each time we have overcome despair and turned towards each other instead of away from each other, these have been the seeds of hope. Now it is for us to gather up these seeds and plant them in the soil of faith, so that what grows will raise us up and raise up a new generation! Through it all, the Lord has made us to be fruitful and multiply and each year we come closer to becoming the majority in this nation!
We will assemble all the seeds that were produced in this year’s harvest to plant again this year – but today, we celebrate, the word which restores our hope, as we read from Isaiah that “In his name the nations will put their hope”, and from the apostle Paul that “For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope”– and from John that “To all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but BORN OF GOD. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us”…. AND SO WE SAY THAT THIS HAS BEEN A YEAR OF PERSISTENT FAITH AND IT HAS BEGUN AGAIN. LET THE PEOPLE SAY AMEN!
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES FOR THE FIRST WEEK IN THE TIME OF ASSEMBLY
Isaiah 42: 1-4 The Servant of the Lord
“Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him, and he will bring justice to the nations. He will not shout or cry out, or raise his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out. In faithfulness he will bring forth justice; he will not falter or be discouraged till he establishes justice on earth. In his teaching the coastlands will put their hope.”
John 1: 1-14 The Word Became Flesh
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. ….. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
Romans 15:3-5 “That we might have hope…”
For even Christ did not please himself but, as it is written: “The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me. ”For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope. May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had.